Ever since Harlan Ellison started flapping his gums about how dangerous his new anthology Dangerous Visions is, it seems a seal has been broken.
First, Michael Moorcock started putting nudes on the covers of his newly taken-over New Worlds. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction started using the word "shit" liberally. And this month, every other story features sex in varying degrees of luridity.
I'm not complaining, mind you. These things have existed in books and in avante-garde publications like Playboy for years. But it's always a bit startling to find the words you hear commonly on the street suddenly appearing in previously staid venues. Sort of like how Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf shocked everyone. As fellow traveller John Boston noted, with books and girlie mags, one knows what one is getting into. But with media that enjoys wider distribution, which could be viewed or read by the the little old lady from Peoria as much as the hippie in San Francisco, editorial tends toward the conservative.
Does an influx of liberality mean the content is improved? Let's read the latest issue of F&SF and find out!
The issue at hand
by Ed Emshwiller
They Are Not Robbed, by Richard McKenna
Richard McKenna died three years ago, but his rate of publication has, if anything, increased. His latest story maintains the quality of work that made his loss so much mourned.
The setup: about 15 years from now, aliens arrive and solve our energy crisis. They also set up cultural exchanges, but the the transactions have a seemingly sinister component. Folks with a certain prerequisite are able to go inside, disappearing for a while before returning with a large check in hand. Aldous Huxley is one of the more famous transactees, but their numbers grow and grow.
Over time, it is determined that each of the selected humans has a certain "tau factor" that has an unknown effect on their behavior and powers. It is only known that the tau factor is measurable…and that it is gone once the humans come back.
Normal humans (those without the tau factor) become jealous, enforcing increasingly rigid restrictions on the tau-enabled humans, with ghettos a foreseeable future. Meanwhile, exchange after exchange begins to disappear.
Amidst this backdrop, we are introduced to our hero, Christopher Lane. Already half dropped out from society, he learns that he is blessed with the tau factor, and upon entering an exchange, learns that it enables him to step out of phase with time. This gives him access to a fairyland world divided into little islands of time. There he meets his true love and hatches a plan to sever his ties with the old Earth before the last exchange closes forever.
As for the sex content, much is made of pulchritude of Christopher's vapid and Earthbound girlfriend (we even learn the color of her pubic hair: black). In this case, the focus on mechanical, unsatisfactory love-making is contrasted with the more elevated relations Chris enjoys out of time.
Only barely science fiction, it is nevertheless a good read. Four stars.
The Turned-off Heads, by Fritz Leiber
The issue takes a bit of a tumble with the next short-short. This exploration of pop culture and the evolving relation of mankind to machinekind is affectedly outré and rather pointless. At least it's short, and I suppose Leiber gets points for forecasting fashion.
Two stars.
by Ed Emshwiller
I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg, by Harlan Ellison and Robert Sheckley
Here's a piece that reads like it could have been in Dangerous Visions. I'm not sure how much was written by Ellison and how much by Sheckley, but it definitely reads like a fusion of their styles.
Our "star" is Joe Pareti, a man whose prime distinction from the rest of the Earth's teeming, over-educated billions is his ability to harvest "goo." This gray, mucousy sludge has choked the planet's oceans and now provides humanity's main source of food. It also has an alarming tendency to writhe, occasionally forming itself into grotesque parodies of animal life.
The goo also, on rare occasion, infects its harvesters. In an act of carelessness, Pareti succumbs, losing all of his hair overnight. His doctor warns that greater changes may be in store, but given that only six cases preceded Joe's, all of them wildly different in their courses, nothing more can be determined.
It doesn't take long for Joe to find out. In short order, every woman finds him irresistible. A life of increasingly exotic sexual escapades is frustrated when inanimate objects also start to make advances on the former goo farmer. Will he succumb to their inorganic advances? What happens if he says no?
This is a weird piece. But, like most things by Ellison and Sheckley, it's a good piece. Four stars.
Light On Cader, by Josephine Saxton
A young undertaker, bade by his mother's dying wish, climbs Cader Idris in Wales on a raw, misty morning. At the summit, he encounters his life's desire…or maybe an unearthly trap.
That's it. There's really not much to this story–except flavor and texture, which is competently done.
Three star.
Crack in the Shield, by Arthur Sellings
This UK author offers up a glimpse of life in the 22nd Century. The development of the personal shield, and (for the less wealthy) shields for structures, causes society to fracture into a myriad of animal-totemed clans. Each has laid claim to a province of the economy: Bees make food, Peacocks are in advertising, etc. Assured immortality by falling in line within this strict societal structure, imagination largely disappears.
The only hope for the race lies with those who voluntarily give up their shields. Crack is the story of Philip Tawn, Peacock, who is driven to do just that.
I found this an implausibly optimistic piece, but Sellings writes it well enough. It's also a bit more fuddy-duddy than the rest of the mag, but I suppose balance has its place.
Three stars.
The Seventh Metal, by Isaac Asimov
Last issue, I praised Doc A.'s article on the ancient discovery and use of the first seven metals (what a kitschy store in Borrego Springs, where I spent the weekend, described as "the seven mystic metals"). Left undiscussed in that piece was mercury, remarkable among the first seven for being the only one that is a liquid at usual temperatures.
Asimov does a fine job talking about element Hg (and why it has that abbreviation). Four stars.
Lunatic Assignment, by Sonya Dorman
Sonya Dorman's tale is of "Four men, dressed in limp white shirts and slacks," each with his own madness. Keepsy, a pervert who sleeps with his hand on his crotch, has a maelstrom of a mind, betrayed all the more by his frustrated desire to project normalcy. Arrigott, having no sense of ego, has trouble with the word "I". Fomer is a schizoid, an empty vessel. And Braun, their leader, has barely suppressed desires to rape and ravage.
But the world is an asylum, and someone has to run it.
I can't say I quite understood this piece, but it is memorable. Three stars.
In His Own Image, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
by Ed Emshwiller
Lastly, we have the tale of Gordon Effro, a spacewrecked sinner who ends up at a lifeboat station at the edge of space. He washes up at a station inhabited by a mad proselytizer with a coterie of robotic disciples. All Effro wants to do is drink himself blind until the rescue ship arrives, but the wild-eyed Christian has other plans.
I liked this story quite a lot up to its conclusion. There are a number of ways this story could have ended. Biggle chose perhaps the least satisfying, the most conventional.
Thus, three stars.
Can I open my eyes?
As it turns out, the stories with smut were my favorites. However, I don't think their salacious content was what sold me; rather, they were just the most interesting of the pieces. On the other hand, perhaps McKenna and Ellison/Sheckley were able to write so effectively because they felt less fettered when they produced these pieces.
I guess only time will tell if 1967 marked an experimental flirtation with sex in science fiction…or if it presaged an SFnal revolution!
Every episode of Star Trek is 51 minutes long, with nine minutes left over for ads and bumpers. And while this week's episode, "Friday's Child", doesn't clock in any shorter than usual, you may finish the hour feeling like you've missed something. It's a show very much in a hurry, and it cuts a lot of corners to get where it's going.
We open on a bridge crew meeting in which they are discussing the best way to approach mining treaty negotiations with the 7 foot tall, war-like, tribal people of Capella IV. This routine excursion immediately goes off script when Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Officer Grant greet the Capellan representatives. A Klingon accompanies the Capellas. Before anyone can stop him, Officer Grant draws his weapon on the Klingon, forcing a Capellan to neutralize the threat. Grant collapses into Kirk's arms, a weapon buried in his chest. Thus, the first death of the episode occurs before the opening credits can even run.
Trigger-happy Grant, we hardly knew ye.
When the landing party finally gains an audience with the king (Ti-er), it becomes clear that there is unrest in the royal tent over who should be given mining rights between the Federation and the Klingons. The current Ti-er, Aka-ar, seems to side with the Federation, due to their honesty and respect for the Capellan planetary autonomy. On the other hand, Ma-ab, who claims to "speak for many" favors Kras the Klingon, whom he thinks has values that more easily align with his macho, Darwinian survivalist, Capellan traditions. Aka-ar offers to fight it out, but Ma-ab retreats, claiming it should be the choice of the Ti-er.
Meanwhile, in space, a ship claiming to be a Federation freighter lures the Enterprise, Scottie in command, away from the planet. That Scottie does so without alerting the landing party, nor determining why they do not answer his hails, I find suspect…to say the least!
"Let's go, lads. After we answer the phony distress call, maybe we can do some last minute Christmas shopping."
In one of the wildest cuts of the episode, we find ourselves back on the planet, the entire village erupted into civil war. In short order, Ma-ab emerges victorious and claims the throne. The issue at hand soon becomes removing the threat posed by the previous Ti-er's pregnant wife, Eleen. All agree that she must be executed to prevent the birth of her child, except Captain Kirk, who snatches her away from the blade about to plunge into her body. The pregnant widow then declares her right to see Kirk executed, as "no man may lay hands on the wife of the Ti-er." The condemned are taken to a tent, from which they promptly escape, dragging the reluctant widow with them.
The landing party retreats into the mountains, using clever traps and inhospitable terrain to keep the Cappellan pursuers at bay. McCoy exercises his prerogative as a doctor, tending to Eleen's arm and checking on the progress of her pregnancy. The Ti-er's widow takes poorly to this, and a slapping match ensues. Rather than becoming upset, Eleen is impressed with McCoy's cheek, tenderly taking his offending hand in hers. Spock witnesses this part of the exchange. McCoy snatches his hand back, but not before receiving a raised eyebrow from the Vulcan.
To be fair, this is about the only acting Nimoy gets to do this episode.
With this permission to touch her thus established, McCoy is able to help deliver her son, but in trying to get her to want the child she hates, McKCoy inadvertently claims ownership of the child. Logically, she then knocks McCoy unconscious and leaves him with 'their' infant to rejoin the Cappellan pursuer. It turns out this is actually to save their lives; she tells her countrymen that she killed them.
But the Klingon is dubious. He demands to see the bodies of the Earthmen himself. When Ma-ab expresses affront at Kras' doubting the word of a Ti-er's wife, Kras goes berserk, slaughtering his former allies. Ma-ab sees he was wrong to trust this Klingon and relinquishes his right to the throne, staying the widow's execution in exchange. He then offers his life to the Klingon to distract him while Ma-ab's second in command gets in position to finally strike the Klingon down.
"Klingon! I challenge you to a jumping jacks contest!"
Extremely late to the party, Scottie and a huge troop of security officers emerge from the shadows, revealing that after he determined the distress signal to be a Klingon deception, he bypassed a conflict with a Klingon vessel offscreen and beamed down an entire party–without contacting Kirk first or getting any idea what kind of situation he'd be beaming his troop down into. Bolstered by this show of force, McCoy reveals the newborn Ti-er. He instructs the infant's new mother how to care for her child and the hastily settled coup somehow doesn't cause any hindrance to the mining treaty that is quickly signed off screen. Cue a final laugh line (the child is named Leonard James Aka-ar) and finis.
My biggest problem with this episode is how poorly the pacing of the two storylines blends together. With the intricate culture of the planet and the cat-and-mouse game in space, there's simply too much for just one episode. It's as though "Friday's Child" was planned as two episodes, but allotted just one. The editing required to fit results in two thirds of a story–or perhaps a whole story, but with vital scenes missing almost at random. Hence, we get endless scenes of Scotty and the bridge crew figuring out the Klingon deception, but no depiction of its resolution. What's left remains solely to break up action on the planet's surface.
The storyline on land isn't without inconsistencies either, the first of which lies in the quick acceptance of Grant's death. When Kirk drops his body to the ground, Doctor McCoy makes no move to dislodge the weapon or check his life signs or make any attempt to revive him. Kirk then laments that Grant was "young and inexperienced" in order to distance himself from the fallen officer's behavior. But why bring a young, inexperienced, trigger-happy security officer to a delicate diplomatic situation? It's also never made explicit why the widow hates her child, and her subsequent about face is similarly mysterious. And while I'm glad to see a woman in charge (Eleen is made regent off screen), I find it hard to believe that such an unstable political situation could have been resolved so quickly. But they needed a quick, happy ending.
There's a lot here to like: a second brush with the Klingons, a challenging diplomatic situation, some excellent interactions both on the planet and the Enterprise. Had the episode been fully developed, it could have reached five stars, but whatever was left on the cutting room floor took my full endorsement with it.
Four stars.
The Cultural Aspect
by J.M. North
This episode impressed me in a number of ways, primarily with the writers’ ability to create a deep and unique, primitive culture at the core of a dispute between two galactic superpowers, and secondarily with the Federation and the Kling-on’s dedication to their rivalry with one another. Even after the Enterprise is briefed about the peace accord in place on this planet and the sensitive nature of this delegation, the action begins after a Federation red-shirted mook instinctively goes to shoot at a Kling-on on sight.
The 10 Tribes society that governs the planet Capella, like the Corridians in the episode prior "Journey to Babel", are an adolescent race not yet introduced to advanced technology, much less even to bows and arrows. They are mostly decentralized, but still elect a representative ‘Teer-akar’ that acts as king but who can be lawfully challenged and usurped at any time. Theirs is a culture that values strength and victory alone; we can see evident parallels to the Freemen from Dune in aspects like their native sovereignty, tribal structure, and in their cultural behavior; honor and ordeal by combat.
Tuesday on Capella.
With the speed that civil war breaks out after the sitting Teer-akar is challenged to single combat, one could assume that these tribal wars are not uncommon on Capella. It is difficult to ignore the covetous and self-advantageous nature of the Kling-on and the Federation who, embroiled in their own cause to gain advantage over one another, precipitate this civil war among Capella’s natives and end up killing a large number of them, and in no shy way at the end does the Federation celebrate getting to conveniently install a puppet-Teer-akar who will deal in favor of them for its lifetime after defeating the pro-kling-on Teer Maab in the final fight.
One sequence I most enjoyed was how Julie Newmar’s character Eleen struggled with her own perceptions of reality, culture and duty. She burns her arm early in the episode and spends a long time conflicted over allowing McCoy to treat it. She is immediately and convincingly impressed by modern medicine but evidently still nervous about it. Later when McCoy suggests that he can save her life, despite her constant protesting, she concedes briefly that “It is always preferable to live..”; after she delivers the baby, her dedication to her duty and to tribal society leads her to attack McCoy and abandon the Earthmen she fled with. It appeared to me that her decision to spare them by telling Maab she had already killed them was only convenient for her and not really her original intention when she abandoned her child with McCoy.
Overall, 4 stars–minus one only because of the number of short-cuts in the plot.
A chance to shine
by Gideon Marcus
In a newspaper clipping I was mailed over the summer, DeForest Kelley talked about how pleased he was to have been given an "also starring" credit in the second season credits. He noted mildly that it was sometimes difficult to stand out when playing opposite such scene stealers as Nimoy and Shatner. We've seen Dr. McCoy take center stage before: "The Man Trap" was definitely his first season standout. But it was also the first episode of last season, and since then, while he has certainly had plenty of prominence, he's never been the star of the show.
Well, "Friday's Child" was a 'Bones' episode, through and through. From his first briefing to the officers of the Enterprise, to his delivery of Eleen's daughter, to his literal upstaging of Kirk when the captain threatens to make a hash (yet again) of diplomacy, McCoy is at the hub of the story. Kelley's chemistry with Newmar is excellent, particularly the slapping scene and the "the child is mine" scene. One can really see that the actor is an old pro, effortlessly selling each moment without mugging or scenery chewing.
"Definitely a ten-pin ball in there…"
To his credit, Shatner isn't bad either. He doesn't inject so much of himself into Kirk this time, though he does keep his hands raised after the security guard dies from a case of trigger-happy-itis for about ten minutes. He also does that characteristic "sauntering into a monologue" thing at least once. But at least he's consistent. He broods over the loss of a crewman; he's a soldier, not a diplomat; and when he chews McCoy out, he later apologizes.
Left on the cutting room floor are all of Nimoy's great moments. I don't think he even speaks until fifteen minutes in, and then he doesn't get very much (though his silent exchange with McCoy on the hilltop speaks volumes). We do get a number of scenes involving the B-list on the Enterprise, reminiscent of "Metamorphosis", but with a bit more purpose. It makes me wonder if we shouldn't just have two shows–one starring Scotty and co., and the other involving the Big Three going on intragalactic adventures.
Anyway, while the show suffers for its skeletal form, it does hang together. Three and a half stars.
A giant among women
by Lorelei Marcus
If there's anything I love, it's babies. I could watch babies do their funny little baby things all day long, and I certainly want a few of my own someday. I was pleasantly surprised that this week's episode featured a newborn, and while most of the time it was played by a bundle of cloth, every so often we got an adorable shot of its sleeping, slightly frog-like face. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Julie Newmar grace the Star Trek stage as a featured guest this episode. Considering Newmar's previous roles, I think it was a good fit.
I'm a bit of a Julie Newmar fan, which is unusual because I don't much care for her acting. In whatever role she plays, she always has a very flat affect that makes her portrayal of the characters feel a little "off". She also has a subtle accent and often stilted delivery which made me wonder if she might have struggled with a hearing impairment growing up. All of this was actually to her benefit as the humanoid robot in My Living Doll, but it didn't serve her as well in the Monkees, or even Batman. What she is good at, though, is physical comedy. Her background as a trained dancer (and perhaps also her experience as a concert pianist) has given Julie Newmar expert bodily control, which she excels at using to emphasize the humor of a moment.
"Don't get fresh with me, Mac-Koy!"
This is where she truly shone in today's Star Trek episode. Her massive height alone made her the perfect choice for a seven-foot tall alien, and she does a very convincing job of appearing encumbered by the weight of a pregnant stomach. The way she avoided being touched by people was also very funny, between her petulant delivery of lines and her slapping at people's hands or even McCoy's face! In a way, her unusual speech patterns also aided in her appearance as an alien, or at least a humanoid used to a different language. Her intentional butchering of McCoy's name always got a laugh, and her misunderstanding of who her baby belonged to also seemed very plausible.
Overall, I think Newmar did a wonderful job in this episode. Despite her shortcomings as an actress, there's something very endearing about the giant beauty who keeps much of her brilliance just below the surface. Whether it be another guest star role or perhaps her own show, I will definitely be looking out for her name in the TV guides again.
In addition to Newmar, everyone else did a great job of acting in this episode. The premise was fascinating, and the new alien culture very interesting; it would have been a five-star episode if (as Amber notes) the editor hadn't left half of it on the cutting room floor.
Three stars.
The next episode of Trek is tonight! Plus, a little before-the show treat.
Come join us at 4:30 PM Pacific (7:30 Eastern) or at 6:30 PM Pacific (9:30 Eastern)!
The latest issue of Yandro has got a nice piece from Ted White reviewing the latest (and best?) tome on science fiction by Alexei Panshin. The best part of White's article is his gentle but lengthy disagreement over the status of magazines versus paperbacks. Both White and Panshin agree that the paperback novel format is The Next Big Thing (indeed, it's already here), but they disagreed on their role and prospects.
Panshin sees the science fiction digests as a continuation of the pulps, with all the negative connotations attached thereto. He thinks they will eventually die. White strongly disagrees. Firstly, he notes that pulp does not equal bad–many extremely talented authors got their start cranking out a half million words for the old mags. Indeed, White says magazines are now populated by a stable of established writers who have perfected their trade while the paperbacks, since they are a buyer's market, will publish anything. Essentially, the books have taken the role the magazines had in the glut days of the early '50s.
White goes on to say that paperbacks are great, but 1) mags are the main outlet for short stories, and some authors are just better at the short form, and 2) editors keep mags going for the love of it. This means they are likely to survive longer than purely economic considerations would suggest.
It's a good piece. I'd give it a read.
The issue at hand
Speaking of which, should you give the strikingly covered latest issue of Analog a read? Well, if you're one of the 30,000 subscribers who gets it delivered, sure go ahead. If you're eyeing it at a newsstand, you'll want to read further…
by John Schoenherr
Dragonrider (Part 1 of 2), by Anne McCaffrey
In Weyr Search, the first installment of this serial-in-all-but-name, we were introduced to planet Pern. It is a fraught former Earth colony, severed from its homeworld for thousands of years and ravaged periodically by rhizomic attacks from a nearby world. The only defense against the "threads" are fire breathing dragons ridden by telepathically connected humans.
The problem is it's been four centuries since the last attack and the "weyrs" of dragronriders have been allowed to go fallow. Only Benden Weyr is left, and it is woefully undermanned and underdragoned.
This latest installment in the saga of Pern opens up sometime after the last. Lessa, heir to the Hold of Ruatha and now Weyrlady by virtue of her communion with the dragon queen Ramoth, has shacked up with the F'lar, head of the dragonriders. Not because the two like each other, but because that's the law: Weyrladies and Weyrleaders must get hitched.
The thread has begun to fall, and the dragons are sorely taxed to meet the challenge, teleporting in and out of the frigid between to intercept the alien spores.
(Note: What do you call it when a dragon relieves itself between? An ICBM!)
Despite the perseverence of F'lar's crew, the thread has the upper hand–until Lessa accidentally discovers that dragons not only can teleport and telepath, but they can also time travel, too! (telechron?) As one might expect, this changes the whole equation…but maybe not for the better.
by John Schoenherr
I dunno. I was expecting a rousing Battle of Britain story, with never so much being owed by so many to so few. The thread would start gradually, the brave fighters would fight to their limits, and through ingenuity and tenacity, eventually win. The story would get extra points for being by and from the viewpoint of woman, a rare thing in science fiction, particularly in the mag that Campbell built.
Instead, the story is badly paced, lurching from scene to scene. There is no build-up to the thread strike, no mounting of tension; it is just suddenly upon them. McCaffrey throws psionic conceits against the wall to see which ones stick (Lessa not only discovers time travel, but she is the only one who can communicate with all of the dragons–unlike the other riders, who can only communicate with their bonded dragon).
Beyond that, the two main characters are thoroughly unlikeable, by turns yelling and sardonically sniping at each other. An element of violence suffuses their interactions, with F'lar and Lessa's couplings being referred to as not less than rape. It all feels very Marion Zimmer Bradley. I've said before that Lessa feels like a wish-fulfillment character for the author. This hypothesis is only becoming more concerning.
What's frustrating is I feel there could be an interesting story here in the hands of someone else. Jack Vance has already written a thematically similar tale with his The Dragon Masters. It's clear that Campbell wants Pern to be the next Dune, complete with striking Schoenherr covers. Thus far, I'd say McCaffrey isn't up to the task.
I was originally going to give the installment a bare three stars, but I think I've talked myself out of it.
Two stars.
The Destiny of Milton Gomrath, by Alexei Panshin
In this short short, an orphaned garbage collector spends his life convinced that his existence of drudgery is a mistake, and that someone, somehow, will rectify the mistake some day.
Turns out he's right, but that may not be a good thing.
This could be the start of a mildly entertaining Laumer novel. Instead, it ends right after the first punchline.
Blink and you'll miss it: three stars.
Whosawhatsa?, by Jack Wodhams
by Kelly Freas
Picture a world where a sex change is as complete and easy as an appendectomy…and reversible, to boot! Now picture the most complicated legal case possible involving a married couple seeking a divorce, both parties of which have swapped genders. And there are children involved, multiple paramours, probate issues, and a Strong Public Interest.
On the one hand, this story is a drag. The attempts to make it "funny", mostly consisting of endless scenes in which the judge assigned the case contemplates suicide rather than attempt presiding, are a flop. Also, one gets the feeling that if women's lib had advanced in the story as much as medical science, most of the legal issues and many of the social ones would be irrelevant. Particularly if 1) we could extend the legal rights currently afforded women in the federal government to all women, and 2) we could approach homosexuality with a less than medieval attitude.
That said…
There is very interesting exploration of what it means to change genders and the motivations that underly the desire to make such a transition. While the situation is made as ludicrous as possible, the subjects, for the most part, are taken seriously. I actually found the piece remarkably progressive, especially for Analog. Certainly, I've never read anything like it before.
Three stars.
Beak by Beak, by Piers Anthony
by Kelly Freas
An alien spacecraft orbits the Earth, neither communicating nor responding to communications. Meanwhile, a red parrakeet arrives at the home of a bird-keeper and joins his avian pet family for a time.
This is a pleasant pastoral piece that tries a little too hard to get its message across. Still, I'll read something like this a thousand times before I'll read Chthon again.
Three stars.
Venus and Mercury—Locked Planets? by R. S. Richardson
Dr. Richardson writes so-so science fiction, but I generally quite like his science fact articles. This one talks about the newly discovered rotation rates of Venus and Mercury, as well as what they might mean in relation to the history of the solar system.
On the one hand, I learned a bit, and that's significant given that I know a lot of astronomy. On the other, I felt the pictures were worth a thousand words, and I found myself skimming a lot of the text. In other words, maybe 20 pages wasn't necessary to make the point (God help us–next month's science article will be 10,000 words!).
Still, four stars.
A Question of Attitude, by Christopher Anvil
by Kelly Freas
A recruit for the interstellar patrol finds himself in an increasingly difficult series of imaginary tests, ones that stick him in mortal peril in a simulated alien planet environment. He seems to fail each one, ending up "dead", yet the Lt. Colonel in charge of training seems to think he has promise.
Normally, Anvil and Campbell are a toxic combination. This time around, the story is kind of interesting. I also rather enjoyed the nihilistic suggestion that the recruit's success is measured in the degree of his failure, and also that passing the tests only means his life is about to get worse. It fits with the whole zeitgeist of our current engagement in Vietnam. Even if Joseph Heller did it better.
Three stars.
Psi Assassin, by Mack Reynolds
by Kelly Freas
Lastly, yet another of Reynolds' tales of Section G, the interstellar agency whose job is to make sure no human planet ends up too backwards, lest the race become prey to an ominous but yet unmet alien menace. This time, a psionic assassin is sent to kill the head of a Latin dictatorship. The problem: agent Ronny Bronston has already dispatched said leader and taken his identity!
We have all the hallmarks of a Reynolds Section G story: endless historical lectures (that never seem to have any object lessons beyond the mid-20th Century), flippant personalities that leach the story of any gravitas, the lone female agent (Reynolds never lets us forget her sex), and a happy ending.
Reynolds has done decent work with this series, but less often than not.
Two stars.
Doing the math
So who's right? Alex or Ted? Based on this month, I'd give the nod to Ted. While Analog was on the mediocre side, managing just 2.8 stars, other magazines fared much better. Both Galaxy and New Worlds scored 3.2 stars. Fantasy and Science Fiction was also pretty good (3.1). If was a bit tired, but par for the course (2.8), and while Amazing's 2.7 score puts it at the bottom of the pack, it actually is on an upward trend.
You could fill two magazines with all the superior stuff that came out this month, which is a good crop. Sadly, McCaffrey wrote the only woman-penned piece, and it wasn't very good (though it was better than Poul Anderson's novella in Galaxy).
I give magazines at least a few more years…
But that's not all we have for today. All the way from Australia comes this exciting stop press in the world of space news!:
by Kaye Dee
“Australia Joins the Space Club!”
Although Australia has supported American and British/European space efforts over the past decade, just yesterday, on 29 November we finally gained our own membership of the Space Club by placing our first satellite, WRESAT-1, into orbit. I’ve written articles previously about the first satellites of France and Italy, so it gives me great pride to report on Australia’s own satellite launch.
WRESAT-1 under construction in at the WRE
WRESAT-1 (WRE Satellite) has been a joint project of the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) and the University of Adelaide, with significant support from the United States. In 1966, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) offered Australia a spare Redstone rocket from the ARPA-led Project Sparta programme at Woomera as a satellite launcher. Sparta has been the final phase of a US/UK/Australian re-entry physics research programme commenced in 1960, investigating radar-echo phenomena created by re-entering missile warheads. The Sparta team even offered to prepare and fire the Redstone for the WRE.
“A Rush Job!”
The scientists and engineers involved in the Australian upper atmosphere research programme took advantage of the proposal to move their instruments from sounding rockets to satellite. However, the Sparta launch offer placed the satellite project on a very tight schedule, as the spacecraft would have to be ready for launch by the end of 1967, when the Sparta project would be complete and the Americans returning home. So, in just 11 months Australia’s, WRESAT has been designed, constructed, tested and was finally launched on 29 November. Its development has been an example of local “make-do” ingenuity, as much of the testing equipment needed was not available in the country.
Australia’s first satellite has been designated WRESAT-1 because my WRE colleagues hope that it will have many successors. Australia doesn’t yet have a space agency like NASA, but the WRE is putting a proposal to the Australian Government for a national space programme, and we hope that it will be funded, with the WRE formally designated as the Australian national space agency.
Diagram showing the internal layout of WRESAT’s systems and scientific instruments
Given the short development period, WRESAT’s scientific payload consists of instruments similar to those already flown in the Australian sounding rocket programme conducted in conjunction with the University of Adelaide Physics Department. The university team has developed a suite of instruments to study solar and ultra-violet radiation, atmospheric ozone and molecular oxygen density, as well as measuring the temperature of the solar atmosphere.
“Going Up From Down Under”
After an aborted launch attempt on the 28th, the Redstone lifted-off flawlessly on the 29th to place WRESAT into a polar orbit, where it is being tracked, and its telemetry signals recorded, by NASA’s Satellite Tracking and Data Acquisition Network – a service also generously provided free to Australia.
WRESAT soars on its way to orbit from Launch Area 8 at Woomera
Because of its short development time, a solar array could not be designed for WRESAT, and the satellite is only battery-powered. This means it will have a very short operational lifespan, but we expect it to gather a large amount of data on the upper atmosphere that will provide a check on the data already gathered by sounding rockets.
Let’s hope that WRESAT-1 marks the start of Australia’s true Space Age, and that this country will soon “shine as brightly as the Southern Cross”, as President Johnson has put it in his congratulatory telegram on our first national launch!
At the World Science Fiction Convention in New York this year, Spock was the man of the hour. There were no fewer than seven Vulcan costumers at the Ball, and the premiere of the episode "Amok Time" was a much-attended event. Rumors abounded that there were more Vulcanian surprises in store this season. It was whispered that one of the upcoming episodes would feature Spock's parents! Thus, we have been greatly anticipating a second return to Vulcan for the last ten weeks.
Well, Spock's Mom and Pop have shown up, but not quite the way we expected.
D.C. (Dorothy) Fontana has been attached to Star Trek for some time, and her pen has been felt on a number of scripts. "Journey to Babel", however, is the first one solely credited to her…and it does her credit!
In brief: The Enterprise is transporting one hundred delegates from dozens of Federation worlds to the planetoid Babel, where they will discuss and vote on the admission of Corridan. Corridan is a low-population, defenseless world that possesses tremendous reserves of dilithium crystals, making it an appealing target for raiders and wildcat mining operations. Membership in the Federation would offer a stepped up level of protection.
The Enterprise's rec room has become something of a babel, itself
The Vulcan delegation is led by Sarek, a 102-year old pulled out of retirement for this mission. Accompanying him are two anonymous aides and a handsome middle aged Earth woman, who is introduced as Sarek's wife, Amanda. Kirk had three guesses as to who the mixed couple might be, and he blew them all. Of course, they're actually Spock's parents (though the dashing Vulcan ambassador does not look anything like Balok, Spock's comment in "The Corbomite Maneuver" notwithstanding.)
Maybe the resemblance is in personalities…
Sarek and Spock are estranged, for Spock chose a career in Starfleet over one in the Vulcan Science Academy. And, Vulcans being the super-logical creatures they are, they have mastered the art of snubbery and pouting.
However, events quickly overcome petty family squabbles. One of the delegates, the abrasive Tellarite named Gav, is murdered, and Sarek is the prime suspect. This slaying may have something to do with the mysterious super ship that is tailing the Enterprise, capable of an astonishing Warp 10. Finally, Sarek himself succumbs to a heart attack, and only surgery facilitated by a transfusion from his son's blood can save him. But Spock cannot leave his post, for Kirk has been stabbed by one of the Andorian delegation, and he can't take the center seat. Cue dramatic music.
"Dear diary. I finally get to run the ship. I hope Jim takes a long time to recover so I don't have to save my mean ol' dad!"
There is a lot to like about this episode. Mark Lenard, whom we last saw as a Romulan commander in "Balance of Terror" (as well as two Mission: Impossible roles as a "Latin"), gives a fine turn as a reserved but not emotionless Vulcan. We get a little more breadth to Nimoy's performance with his more relaxed interactions with his mother. DeForest Kelley is a real stand-out this episode, even getting the last line of the show.
"I finally get the last word. Take that, Bill and Leonard, you primadonnas!"
The tense battle scenes on the bridge are excellent, and it was a delight seeing all the alien races. I was particularly impressed with the Andorian ambassador; the blue-skinned aliens appear to be a tonic to the Vulcans, prioritizing violence, passion, and pecunious aims. Chekov, Uhura, Chapel all get relatively meaty roles (though Sulu and Scotty are completely absent). And Shatner manages to turn in a more first-seasoned performance…minus the flying posterior attack he uses to dispatch his Andorian assailant.
The captain suffers a grievous wound after using his "flying posterior attack" on his assailant
On the other hand, the episode has rough bits. The editing is particularly choppy, with the aforementioned Andorian/Kirk attack coming out of nowhere and some dialogue scenes being cut abruptly. The musical score is almost entirely from the library. This could be fine, except the musical pieces are all highly evocative of their origin. I kept expecting the attacking vessel to be a giant cornucopia, and when Sarek arrived, I expected they were about to enter a parallel dimension.
I've come to get a feel for my Star Trek directors. This season, Joseph Pevney and Marc Daniels have essentially alternated the past dozen episodes. I much prefer the avante garde latter to the staid former. Whenever Pevney is at the helm, I know I'm going to see a more stagey, less dynamic episode. It may be him to blame for Miss Jane Wyatt's particularly flat performance as Spock's mother.
"I'm just here for the free drinks and blue fruit…"
Nevertheless, I have a largely favorable impression. Two concurrent plots were resolved nicely, many characters got to shine, and the scope of the Trek universe was expanded tremendously.
Four stars.
by Joe Reid
How Do You Say Love in Vulcan?
We have come to regard Vulcans as stoic and emotionless. Star Trek so far has provided two examples of what feelings of love, and emotions in general, exist in the complex Vulcan heart. The first was from season one’s “This Side of Paradise”, where we saw Spock expressing love and, dare I say, happiness as his emotional walls were toppled by a mind-altering spore. The second example being this season’s “Amok Time”, when Spock was driven mad by his Pon Farr. Showing intense emotional outburst, deceit, anger, and violence from Spock in his efforts to get to Vulcan to marry and mate driven by the intense hormonal assault. This week’s episode gave us our first untainted look at Vulcan emotions.
If we have learned anything from Star Trek it’s that Vulcan are quick to point out that emotional responses are a human failing. That Vulcans do not experience such things, because they are guided by logic. “Journey to Babel” painted a different picture, showing that Vulcans can hold long grudges, feel pride, display tenderness, love deeply, express frustration, and even engage in humor. They do indeed experience emotions, though usually filter responses to their feelings through a rubric of logic.
During introductions, Sarek completely ignored Spock. Kirk asked Spock to give them a tour, and Sarek’s response towards Spock bordered on contempt, asking Kirk for a different guide. It was later revealed by Amanda that Sarek disapproved of Spock’s choice to join Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy. Sarek not only scornfully held a long grudge when Spock didn’t meet his expectations, but rudely expressed that disappointment at the introductions. His behavior was clearly an emotional response.
"Son? I have no son."
Spock’s mother was a standout character this episode. She was unapologetically human, while showing full acceptance of her Vulcan husband and his role as a planet’s ambassador. Amanda was full of mirth, caring, prudence, tenderness, and above all loyalty, demonstrating an almost perfect example of the best of human qualities. Through his interactions with Amanda, we saw Sarek’s love. Humans show togetherness by holding hands. The Vulcan version is a gentle touch using only the index and middle fingers. A connection held up at the level of their hearts, not buried at the level of their loins, as is the case with humans. In almost every scene we were graced with this passionate and public, yet tender, expression of love and commitment from Sarek and Amanda.
Although guided by logic, Vulcans are easily as emotionally complex as humans. Though Sarek disagreed with Spock’s Starfleet decision, he said to his wife that Spock deserved to be shown the respect of a Starfleet officer and that she shouldn’t embarrass him, showing both Sarek’s pride in Spock and acknowledgement that Spock can feel embarrassment. Regardless of Sarek's brusqueness, Spock devotedly argued with Amanda and McCoy for the operation to save Sarek’s life. Even though Spock and Sarek shared few words during the episode, the final scene had them joking about why Sarek would marry such an emotional woman. An exchange followed by two fingers touching between Spock’s loving parents.
What stood out in this cloak and dagger episode filled with alien faces were the loving emotions of a Vulcan-Human family. A tender flower rooted amid a warzone, and I found it most acceptable.
Five stars
And introducing Mr. J. North, our new resident menace…
The Religious Subtext
by J.M. North
My scope of the Star Trek universe has been so far limited, having started watching in the middle of season 2. This episode, regardless, seems like it would be exceptionally revealing even for those who are caught up in the series. What I have verified is that this is the first appearance of the Corridians, Andorians and the Orions, as well as of Spock’s mother and father and a number of other alien races. There is dialogue throughout indicative of The Federation and Star Fleet’s domain throughout the galaxy, and revealing of its ultimate alignment with the Vulcan ideals of scientific discovery, peace and fair interplanetary-cooperation. In the episode prior, Captain Kirk reveals in a discussion with Zefram Cochrane that mankind has settled up to 1,000 extraterrestrial bodies besides Earth, my own first indication to the extent of humanity's advancement as a species. This episode provides my first indication of the influence of the Federation and its true purpose as a diplomatic conference, as well as its relative advancement compared to other species–notably the Orions with whom Kirk is impressed for using the same phasers as Star Fleet.
The Orion strikes!
In the episode prior there is a possible, easily dismissed reference to the bible when Zefram Cochrane considers planting a fig tree after his conflict with the Companion is resolved, symbolic perhaps of forgiveness, love or peace, or something abstract as the fig is mentioned in all sorts of contexts in the bible, which I would indeed dismiss if not for the much more evident reference to Christian canon in this episode. Journey to Babel, the title of which is unmistakably an allusion to the Tower of Babel story from Genesis, and the plot no doubt a representation of God’s subsequent punishment for man: the confounding of language and onset of war before the great flood. I find the thematic parallels to be quite compelling.
It is poetic how the sci-fi context is used to discuss biblical themes; well-written inter-stellar geopolitics provide the basis for a potential war between the adolescent Corridian race, the advanced planet-mining race of Tellarites and the provocative, warlike Orions, conveying the ultimate theme of division and conflict among races from the namesake parable. Rather than the confounding of language (thanks to universal translation), conflict arises by the confounding of ideas for how to treat the Corridians. The Tellarites are forward about their lack of support for Coridan’s admission to the Federation, and their desire to poach the planet clean, while the Orions seek to promote this conflict between them into an all out war that they could profit off of by selling to both sides.
Further compelling to me regarding this biblical theme is the discussion of the genesis of a new primitive race; the Corridians, and their comparison to other civilizations, and further their advancement by joining the Federation. Consider biblical canon; genesis of the human race in Eden, enslavement of the Israelites by the Egyptians (poaching of Corridan by the Tellarites?), following the advancement of society into the time of Rome. What I’d like to watch for now is if this religious subtext prevails throughout the show, or if it is just these two episodes that happen to have been inspired by biblical themes.
Five stars for good writing, a rich galaxy, and savvy biblical adaptation.
According to the very latest Science Fiction Weekly (formerly Degler), F&SF has failed to gain readership in the last several years. Contrast this to the steady gains (and 2x readership in general) that Analog has enjoyed.
Van Arnam ascribes this stagnation not to the inherent superiority of Campbell's mag, but the fact that F&SF just can't get the same kind of distribution that the other mags enjoy. The owners of Fantastic and Amazing benefit from having two mags to use as leverage. Fred Pohl has three, sort of. And Analog is put out by Condé Nast, which means newsstands get Analog as part of a larger package including big deal pubs like Vogue.
So the question becomes this: would F&SF score better with the fans if distribution was no longer a factor? In other words, is F&SF a better mag than the rest? Let's look at this month's issue and find out!
I always enjoy stories that mix magic with technology, and this piece by David Redd does so quite well. The setting is distant world with a steep axial tilt and a long orbit. Thus, for decades of its solar sojourn, whole swaths of the planet are in perpetual day or night.
Humans came to this world and drove away, enslaved, or slaughtered the natives of the northern polar continent when it was in sunlight. They built cities, exploited the land, and in general behaved like the expansionistic menace we so often are. Then the night came again…
As of the beginning of the tale, the dryads, gnomes, fur spirits, oreads, elves, and trolls, have lived in peace for some time, mining the abandoned human colony for metallic treasures under the endless starry night. But the serpent is returning to paradise: Josef Somes, a human from the southern lands, is trudging north in search of valuable "life-rock", and he doesn't care who he has to kill to get it.
The hero of our story is a the White Lady, a dryad. Her companions, a stolid, axe-wielding gnome, two fur spirits, and a cronish oread, form a squad whose mission is to dispatch the human before he can defile the fairy Homeground.
There is a lovely world here, and an unusual storytelling perspective. If the story has any fault, it is the rather prosaic language and somewhat shallow treatment. I feel Thomas Burnett Swann could have raised the material up to five stars.
It's still a fine piece, though, and an excellent opening to the issue. Four stars.
The Saga of DMM, by Larry Eisenberg
The synthetic drug, DMM, is not only the tastiest substance in existence, it is the richest food imaginable. And it's a powerful aphrodesiac. It soon proves more popular than pot, acid, reds, whites, and heroin comined. A wave of fornicative obesity sweeps the world, with catastrophic results.
Pretty frivolous satire. Not really worth your time. Two stars.
by Gahan Wilson
Brain Wave, by Jennifer Palmer and Stuart Palmer
A male college student is mentally contacted by a comely alien woman from from Alpha Centauri. A friendly correspondence ensues.
I find I have very little to say about this up-front story, which reads like some kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy until the end, whereupon it has a rather silly twist conclusion (that I suppose is meant to be horrific, but it's really not).
"Mildly diverting fluff" covers it. It straddles the 2/3 star barrier, but I think it ends up on the poorer end of the spectrum.
Cerberus, by Algis Budrys
Marty McCay is an amiable ad man, legendary for his mildness. His method for coping with his wife's flagrant infidelities is to tell shaggy dog tales with a punning punchline. In the end, we see that the butt of his jokes was always himself.
There's no science fiction in this tale. What there is, however, is some excellent writing. Four stars.
Noise, by Ted Thomas
In this month's science fact vignette, I thought Thomas was going to propose a sonic weapon. Instead, he outlines the invention of selective ear-plugs that would blot out the bad noise, but admit desired sounds.
One of his better pieces, which is to say, it doesn't stink.
Three stars.
To Behold the Sun, by Dean R. Koontz
The first expedition to the sun is about to take off, crewed by three regular humans and a cybernetic ship-master. Unfortunately, said cyborg is still shellshocked from losing his beloved in a fire several years prior. And what is the sun if not a big ball of fire?
Behold feels as if Koontz read a bunch of Zelazny tales and thought, "I can do this too!" Well, he can't. His writing is hamfisted, the science is silly, and the situation is contrived.
Besides, if they wanted a safe trip to the sun, they should have waited until nighttime…
Wilson not only provides the cartoons for each issue of F&SF, he is also an author. Mandarin is the story of a pulp villain increasingly taking control of his creator's work, ultimately departing from the printed page into reality.
Reasonably well done, and arguably more successful than his drawings. Three stars.
The First Metal, by Isaac Asimov
I rate an Asimov article by its memorability and quotability. The good Doctor's discussion of the earliest knowledge of metals was pretty interesting, and I ended up summarizing the piece to my family on one of our morning walks. The only real fault with the piece is that it would have been well served by a couple more pages.
Four stars.
The Chelmlins, by Leonard Tushnet
A droll piece about how the Jewish version of the Leprechauns helps keep the schlemiels of the Polish city of Chelm from becoming schlimazels. It's the kind of story Avram Davidson might write, though had he done so, it may well have been funnier. Chelmlins isn't bad, but it doesn't quite hit the mark hard enough.
Finally, the latest story in the Vermillion Sands setting. These tales of the rather surreal artists colony tend to be my favorite by Ballard. This particular one involves a troupe of cloud-sculptors: glider pilots who use silver iodide and custom aircraft to create ephemeral images in the sky. They are hired by a bitter widow possessed of extreme vanity, with deadly results.
If you've read one story, you've read them all. They universally involve desolate landscapes, a dreamy sense of time, and have a sour undertone. This was dramatic stuff when Ballard first came on the scene early in the decade, but it's getting a bit played out.
Three stars.
Hung jury
This issue turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag. There are some stand-out pieces and some duds. Most interestingly, we have a several stories that would have been well served by being written by greater talents. On the other hand, rawer authors have to start somewhere, so I'd hate to deny them their chance to improve.
All in all, this issue would probably keep me subscribing, particularly at the discounted holiday rates. I don't know if the quality demonstrated in the December 1967 F&SF would be sufficient to displace other mags for the Best Magazine Hugo, however, even if distribution were not an issue.
It's all academic, in the end. As long as you order directly from the company, it doesn't really matter how many newsstands the magazine ends up on. So tell your friends and get a subscription today. You just might help F&SF outlast all of its competitiors!
Books seem to be published faster than ever these days, and many are worth a gander. Please enjoy this triple-whammy featuring SEVEN sciencefictional titles…plus a surprise guest at the end!
Shaw recently made a big impact with his Hugo-nominated short story, Light of Other Days, and I've enjoyed everything he's come out with. So it was with great delight that I saw that he'd come out with a full length novel called Nightwalk.
I went in completely blind, and as a result, enjoyed the twists and turns the story took far more than if I'd known what was coming. Thus, I give you fair warning. Avoid the following few paragraphs if you wish to go into the book completely unaware.
by Frank Frazetta
Sam Tallon is an agent of Earth based on the former colony and now staunch adversary world, Emm Luther. In-between are 80,000 portals through null-space. Would that there could be but one, but hyperspace jumping is a blind affair, and the direct route between portals is impossible to compute. Only trial and error has mapped 80,000 matched pairs whose winding, untrackable route bridges the two worlds. Luckily, transfer is virtually instantaneous.
Literally inside Tallon's head is the meandering route to a brand new world. Given the dearth of inhabitable planets, both overcrowded Luther and teeming Earth want this knowledge. Before Tallon can escape with it, he is captured by the Lutheran secret police, tortured most vividly and unpleasantly, and sent for a life sentence to be spent at the Lutheran version of Devil's Island, the Pavillion.
Oh yes–in an escape attempt, the sadistic interrogator whom Tallon fails to kill on his way out zaps his eyes and leaves him quite blind.
Tallon is not overly upset by this development. At this point. he is quite content to spend the rest of his life in dark but not unpleasant captivity…except the wounded interrogator is coming for a visit, and Tallon knows he won't survive the encounter. Luckily, he and a fellow prisoner have managed to create a set of glasses tied into the optic nerve and tuned to nearby glial cells. They will not restore a man's sight…but they will allow him to tune in to the vision of any animal about him. With this newfound advantage, Tallon must make the thousand mile trek back to the spaceport, and then traverse the 80,000 portals to Earth.
Alright–you can read again. Nightwalk is 160 pages long. 60 of the pages, the first 30 and the last 30, are brilliant, nuanced, full of twists and turns, and genuinely exciting. The 100 pages inbetween comprise a well-written but forgettable thriller. I will not go so far as to agree with Buck Coulson, who wrote in the latest Yandro: "pulp standard; described by Damon Knight as "putting his hero in approximately the position of a seventy-year-old paralytic in a plaster cast who is required to do battle with a saber-tooth tiger and there being no place to go from there, kept him in the same predicament throughout the story, only adding an extra fang from time to time." But the assessment is not completely inapt.
Nevertheless, the book kept me reading, and if you can keep momentum through the middle, the whole is worthwhile.
3.5 stars.
ACE double H-34
Another month, another "ACE double". They seem to increasingly becoming my province these days, or perhaps I'm becoming the resident Tubb novel reviewer. Either way, I'm thoroughly amenable to the relationship!
I originally covered this novel when it appeared in the pages of Analog. Long story short: it's a history lesson disguised as an SF story–Reynolds doesn't even bother to color his nations, which retain their stock names of Alphaland and Betastan, as if this were an Avalon Hill wargame or something.
Not one of his better efforts, and it doesn't even have the benefit of Freas' nice art. A low three stars.
Three centuries from now, England is still recovering from "the Debacle", an atomic paroxysm that all but destroyed the world in the 1980s. Society has calcified into an oligarchic, capitalist nightmare, with a few rich entities ultimately controlling everything: the loan sharks, the power generators, and the hypnotists. In many ways, it is the last group that is the most powerful, for a generation after the Debacle, they fostered a pervasive belief in reincarnation. With their guidance (or perhaps suggestion), all (save the rare odd "cripple") persons can Breakthrough to their past lives). So universal is this belief in multiple lives that many have become "retrophiles", living out their lives in the guise of a former existence, even to living in towns constructed along archaic lines.
Into this world are thrust three bonafide time travelers, put in stasis in the 1970s to await a cure for their radiation-caused illnesses. Not only are they exiles in an age not theirs, but they have also amassed a tremendous debt in their centuries asleep. Brad Stevens, an atomic physicist born in 1927, is determined to free himself and his 20th Century comrades from the fetters of financial obligation. Thus ensues a rip-roaring trip through an anti-utopian Britain, filled with narrow escapes, exotic scenery, and a few interesting, philosophical observations.
Tubb has already impressed me this year with his vivid The Winds of Gath, and he does so again with this adventure. Indeed, Tubb is such the master of the serial cliff-hanger that I found myself quite unable to put the book down, reading it in two marathon sessions. Of particular note are his observations on faith, on the seductiveness of nostalgia, and on the pernicious nature of laissez-faire capitalism, which inevitably degenerates into anything but a free market.
What keeps this story from a fifth star is precisely what garners it a fourth: it is quick, excellent reading, but it doesn't pause long enough to fully explore all of its intriguing points. Thus, it remains like Ted White's Jewels of Elsewhen–beautifully turned, but somewhat disposable.
Still, I'm not sorry I read it, and neither will you be. Four stars.
by Victoria Silverwolf
From the L File
Two new science fiction novels with titles that begin with the twelfth letter of the alphabet fell into my hands recently. Other than that trivial coincidence, they could hardly be more different. Let's look lingeringly, lest literature lie listlessly languid.
The first thing you'll notice when you open the book is a map. With that, and the title, I wonder if the author and/or the publisher is alluding to J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings, which has recently become quite popular here in the USA. That series has a map too.
Map by Jack Gaughan
Given the size of a paperback, it's darn hard to see everything on the map, which has a lot of detail. Fortunately, it's not really necessary. I'll point out a few landmarks as we go along.
A Public Works Project
We start in the middle of the map. At first, you might think the novel takes place in the past, with horse-drawn vehicles and such. We soon find out that it's thousands of years in the future. Our own technological society is nearly mythical, lost in the mists of time. There are bits and pieces of it here and there, left in ruins.
It seems that humanity lost its spirit long ago. Civilization has stagnated. A military officer has a plan to deal with that, and he explains it to a government official.
Take a look at the extreme southwest corner of the map, right next to the compass. That's a place where gigantic remnants of the glory days of yesteryear lie wasting away. The officer's scheme is to build a huge starship from what's left and carry its passengers to a new, better world.
If that sounds crazy to you, you're on the right track. There is no real intent to complete the project. Instead, it's just a trick to get the population excited about something, and working together for centuries. Think pyramids and cathedrals.
The first step is to launch a series of bloody wars, so the folks in the middle of the map can make their way to the coast, conquering and slaughtering along the way. Make no mistake; there are a lot of gruesome battle scenes in this book.
Many years later, society is divided into a small number of elites, who know the truth about the phony starship, and the ordinary people, who do not. The latter come to almost worship it. Under the leadership of a charismatic figure, they revolt against their rulers.
We're still not done with bloodshed. Without going into details, suffice to say that the naval fleets of the islands off the eastern coast (look at the map) get involved. This leads to a conflict that makes everything else that happens in the book look like minor skirmishes. Then we get a wild twist ending that really pulls the rug out from under you, making you rethink everything you thought you knew about what's going on.
This is a strange book. There are no real protagonists. The plot takes place over a couple of centuries or so, and characters come and go very quickly. This accelerates in the latter part of the novel. Some chapters consist of only one sentence, and read like excerpts from a history book. (The author is a history major, still in college.)
It's also a dark and cynical book. From the deception that starts the story to the completely unexpected revelation that ends it, it's full of sinister plots, secretive government agencies, and human lives sacrificed for the schemes of others.
A sense of despair and resignation to fate fills the novel. The commander of the naval fleet I mentioned above knows that building up his ships for the upcoming war will take eighty years, and also knows that wholesale destruction will be the outcome of the conflict, but accepts the situation as inevitable.
It's an intriguing work, but one that's very hard to love.
There's no map in this book, but it does have what must be the world's longest dedication. See for yourself.
I don't recognize everything on that massive list — The Ears of Johnny Bear? — but I am familiar with much of it. What do those things have in common? Unless I am mistaken, none of them are very recent. Keep that in mind.
Next we get the book's basic premise.
I get the message. It's that darn Youth Culture everybody is talking about. I suppose that's because a lot of post-World War Two babies are in their teens and early twenties now. Mods, hippies, bikers, protestors; they're all young folks, aren't they? The two authors of this novel don't seem too happy about the situation.
Don't Trust Anyone Over Twenty-One
(Apologies to political activist Jack Weinberg for stealing and distorting his famous quote. The original number was thirty.)
Something like a century and a half from now, people are only allowed to live to the age of twenty-one. We get an explanation late in the book as to how this happened, but never mind about that. Most folks go along with this, but some try to escape. These rebels are called — you guessed it — Runners.
There's a special police force that kills Runners. They're known as Sandmen. Our hero, Logan 3, is a Sandman near the end of his assigned lifetime. He gets a gizmo from a dying Runner that is supposed to lead the person who holds it to the fabled refuge known as Sanctuary. Determined to find and destroy the place, he pretends to be a Runner himself. The dead man's sister, Jessica 6, is also a Runner. You won't be surprised to find out she's the love interest, too.
Most of the book consists of the pair's wild adventures all over the world as they try to find Sanctuary. Feral children in a decaying part of a city; an inescapable prison at the North Pole; rebellious young folks who ride around on what seem to be flying motorcycles; robots recreating a Civil War battle; and much, much more. The plot moves at an insane pace, and you probably won't believe a minute of it.
Meanwhile, a Sandman named Francis 7 tracks down the two. He's kind of like Inspector Javert from Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables or Lieutenant Gerard from the TV series The Fugitive. Cold-blooded and relentless, he never gives up. He's also got a secret of his own, leading to a surprise ending.
I get the feeling that the co-authors threw wild twists and turns at each other, shouting Top This! as they tossed pages of the manuscript back and forth at each other. It's a wild ride indeed. As I've indicated, it's got a lot of implausible aspects. The one that really stood out for me was when Logan and Jessica instantly — and I mean instantly — fall in love when they pose nude for a ice sculpture carved by a half-man/half-robot. (Long story.)
If you like lightning-paced action/adventure novels with a touch of satire, you'll get some fun out of this one. Just don't expect serious speculation about where the younger generation is taking us older folks.
Three stars.
by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall
Not Quite What We Were Tolkien About!
Whilst it has been delayed by the legal shenanigans around the paperback edition of The Lord of The Rings, we are going to be getting the next installment in Tolkien’s Middle Earth series, The Silmarillion, very soon. Cylde S. Kilby was helping Professor Tolkien over the summer and gives some details in a recent edition of The Tolkien Journal, including that this is going to borrow a lot from Norse Myths around the creation of Midgard. Sounds like an epic and complex work for sure.
However, in the meantime, we have a new tale from him, not related to Middle Earth. In some ways, it is a more traditional fairy story, but with many fascinating elements that make it well worth your while.
Every twenty-four years, in the village of Wootton Major, there is held the feast of Twenty-Four where a great cake is made by the Master Cook and shared with Twenty-Four children. The current Master is not particularly skilled in his job and often relies on his apprentice. However, he ignores it when the apprentice tells him not to add the Faery Star to the cake, which ends being eaten by young Smith.
On Smith’s tenth birthday, the star begins to glow on his forehead, and he has many adventures, including into Faery itself.
One of Pauline Baynes many beautiful illustrations in the book
As you can probably tell, Smith of Wootton Major is not an epic quest narrative filled with battles and doom (as you may expect if you have only read The Lord of The Rings). Instead, this is a more charming and quiet work of his, resembling more closely Leaf by Niggle or The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
I don’t want you to get the impression from this it is boring or frivolous. If the Middle Earth novels are like your eighth Birthday Party with all your best friends, this is like snuggling up by a roaring fire with a mug of cocoa and a wonderful book. Different but can be equally enjoyable.
As anyone at all familiar with him will tell you, Tolkien is an absolute master of language and can use it multiple ways to create whatever effect is needed. Here he creates an effortless amiability about the whole thing, introducing wit and joy without seeming forced or conceited. The story is just a marvelous experience.
Apparently, this story came from another project, specifically as an introduction for a new version of George MacDonald’s The Golden Key. He wanted to explain about Faery using this as a kind of metaphor; however, this ended up being expanded into a story in its own right, one I am very glad to have.
It seems odd that Dodie Smith’s latest novel The Starlight Barking has flown under the radar.
It is written by a great novelist who is beloved by mainstream literary publications, and whose play Dear Octopus is currently a hit in the West End. It has been praised by luminaries such as Christopher Isherwood. Moreover, it is the sequel to a beloved children’s classic, the movie version of which was the first movie ever to earn more than $100 million in the cinemas.
And yet, it is also a very odd illustrated novel. Though I find much to recommend in the work, I can understand why it seems not to have grabbed the public imagination as much as the work to which it is a sequel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians.
Picking up shortly after the first book, The Starlight Barking finds the protagonist Dalmatians Pongo and Missis living in Suffolk. One night, all living beings other than dogs fall into a deep magical sleep. The dogs also discover that they can fly, communicate across long distances, and operate machines.
Each dog takes on the jobs of their owners. Having been adopted by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Cadpig (the runt of the litter from the first book) is therefore now in charge of the country. She summons her family to London to help.
A subsequent scene in which the United Kingdom Cabinet goes to the dogs is a highlight of the book. Followers of British politics will note the well-drawn satire of Secretary of State George Brown depicted as a clumsy but cosmopolitan Boxer, and Minister of Transport Barbara Castle depicted as fussy and officious poodle. (Is the refusal of James Callaghan to devalue the Pound the reason that his dog is shown as being less mathematically inclined than the other dogs?)
Back in Suffolk, Cruella de Vil’s Persian cat — who helped the dogs escape in the first novel — turns out to be unaffected by the sleeping illness as she was named an “honourary dog.” The cat suggests that Cruella must be behind the plague of sleep, and therefore must be killed. But when the dogs find Cruella, she is asleep like the rest of humanity. So they spare her.
An alien, Dog Star Sirius, appears at the top of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square. He admits that he is behind the sleep, and that he has come to Earth to save dogs from an impending cataclysmic nuclear war.
Sirius invites all dogs everywhere to join him in the sky, and gives them a day to decide. Pongo is given the final choice. I won’t spoil the ending, but let me be completely up-front here: it doesn’t get less weird.
This is a flawed and chaotic short novel. But it is that chaos of a childhood flight of fancy; unbounded by expectation, and brimming with whimsy. Dodie Smith’s writing alternates between compelling action writing, and something poetic and magical. Her evident affection for dogs in general leads her to make them very lovable characters.
Given that the only animated movie that Disney has released since 101 Dalmatians was a critical and commercial flop (The Sword In The Stone earned just $20M), they may try to film this sequel. If and when they decide to do so, I hope they have the ambition and the audacity to stay true to this novel.
I would wager that if there were a Hugo Award category to celebrate works geared for younger readers, The Starlight Barking would be a strong contender for that shortlist.
"I, Mudd" follows the tradition set by three other episodes we've seen so far, in which the crew of the Enterprise has to out-logic a robot ("What are little girls made of," "Return of the Archons," "Changeling"). Even though this episode recycles many of the same themes we've seen in those episodes, it offers enough unique elements to make it my favorite of its kind.
We open on a hallway conversation between the ship's doctor and chief science officer where the ever-cynical medico's instincts lead him to correctly identify an interloper on the ship in the form of the newest crewmember, Lieutenant Norman.
"What did he call me?"
Unfortunately, Spock rebuffs Dr. McCoy's theory (logically) because his reasoning points out Norman's inhuman behaviors, many of which overlap with those of Spock himself. McCoy insists that "the ears make all the difference" but the damage is clearly done as the supposedly unemotional Spock abruptly extricates himself from the conversation with an acerbic retort.
"I mean, you're one of the good ones."
McCoy is immediately vindicated when Norman's next move is to hijack the ship. He single handedly dispatches two security teams, all of engineering including Scotty, rigs the controls to blow if the ship deviates from the course he assigns it, and barges straight onto the bridge to explain the now-captive crew's new situation. Norman presents Captain Kirk a "choice" to either go on a four day voyage to an unknown destination or face the immediate destruction of the Enterprise. Ever cool under pressure, Kirk demands to know the nature of his attacker. Norman responds only by peeling back a panel under his shirt to reveal an android abdomen full of wires.
An android's navel–note that these robots don't use integrated circuits…
Further inquiries over who sent him are met with "I am not programmed to respond in that area" before he immediately shuts himself off. So confident is he in his power play (pun intended) that Norman leaves his unconscious body standing in the middle of the doorway to the bridge. Apparently no one disturbs him for four days as the crew seems startled from their normal activities when Norman abruptly awakes and makes further demands. He acts as if he's giving the crew another choice as he requests a set of personnel to accompany him on the planet they're now orbiting, but again refusal means certain death. At least he said “please” this time.
It soon becomes clear why Norman was reluctant to reveal who sent him, because we next open up to a throne room centered around none other than the illustrious Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Undeterred by Mudd's declaration of newfound sovereignty, Kirk charges at him and commences a delightful volley of banter where Mudd catches the crew up on what he's been up to since they last left him in custody for his transgressions. Surprising no one, Harry's made a mess of every situation he's been involved in and has found himself marooned on this planet of 200,000 androids while fleeing the consequences of his actions. Through much childish bickering on Harry's part, Kirk manages to wrench the truth out of the scoundrel, soon discovering that Mudd is just as much a prisoner of the androids as the Enterprise crew is.
"They won't let me go!"
A strange detail comes into play when the crew is being led away and stumbles upon the shrine to Stella, Mudd's wife. It seems odd that Harry would be so sentimental as to make an exact replica of the nagging shrew he gratefully abandoned galaxies away. It must follow that either the loneliness of being the only human on an android planet compelled Mudd to seek security in the familiar or he is such an adversarial man that the ability to make a version of a nemesis he could program with an off button proved to be an irresistible temptation. The most ironic element of that situation is that Stella may be shrill and harping but with a husband like Harcourt, the audience can't help but be squarely on her side.
Unsurprisingly, the androids reject Mudd the second they have any other humans to compare him to, and devote themselves to providing everything the crew wants so they can better serve humanity. They explain that serving humans gives the androids renewed purpose and protects humans by taking care of their every need to save them from themselves. Elements of the gilded cage they're presented with tempt each of the crew members in turn, but whenever a wish contradicts the terms of their captivity, the crew begins to notice that the androids balk at the paradox by freezing in place, their ID necklaces flashing until the conflict is resolved. It is subsequently discovered that the androids are part of a partial hive-mind directed by Norman and that they defer to him to avoid overloading individual units when logical computation is stalled. Thus ensues a campaign to confuse and overload as many androids by whatever means possible. Fake music, subterfuge, logical fallacies, play acting and flat-out lies become weaponized against the unsuspecting computers; each crewman performs their ridiculous acts admirably, especially Spock, who befuddles several androids all by himself.
"Sorry, ladies. I'm just too good for you."
The episode reaches a delightful climax as the crew's play-acting for Norman finally causes literal steam to billow out of his ears and he admits humans are too complex to be managed by anyone but other humans. In the even more satisfying conclusion, after reaching a peaceful solution to coexist with the androids, Mudd's punishment is revealed to be exile on the android planet so they can help him rehabilitate his nefarious ways. Mudd initially rejoices in this reward of a punishment, until the crew unveils his personal attendants: 500 copies of Stella, this time without her off switch.
Not one line of the script is superfluous and every crewman is at their most efficient and capable as they execute every plan flawlessly. The script, plot, performances and design of this episode click together as seamlessly as the gears powering a well-constructed android.
I am a self-confessed, dyed-in-the-wool robot-a-phile. It is thus inevitable that I give this episode…
5 stars
The Shrew in the Ointment
by Janice L. Newman
I’ll admit, the preview for this episode had me worried. “Mudd’s Women” had some good elements, but was overall one of the weaker episodes of the first season. Happily, this episode was much better than that first one starring Mudd. There was just one problem that took it down a star for me – a fly in the ointment, if you will.
It was an old, old, joke even when Shakespeare did it: the harridan wife and her ne’er-do-well husband. Despite the fact that the audience knows that Harry Mudd’s perspective is unreliable, and thus his version of his wife may not represent the real woman, upon seeing the cartoonishly-awful “Stella” android we can’t help but be repelled and thus sympathize with the charismatic Mudd. Yet a moment’s thought makes one realize how nonsensical it is in the context of Star Trek. This is the future. Is it really so hard to get a divorce if one is unhappy with one’s spouse? If two people are so miserable together, is it truly necessary for one of them to flee into outer space? And sure, another moment’s thought is all it takes to realize that Mudd likely married his wife to gain some kind of monetary benefit, and that if we were in her place, we might be shrill, too. Still, Stella isn’t particularly funny, and for me, even Mudd’s comeuppance was poisoned by her sour, nagging presence.
If Harry Mudd put you in a closet, you'd make this face, too.
The rest of the episode is great, though; one of the best “break the computer” ones we’ve seen. Four stars.
A little bit of Vaudeville
by Gideon Marcus
Something I love about the stellar anthology show, Star Trek, is how versatile it is. One week, we're getting political commentary, with ramifications right from the headlines of today (e.g. "A Taste of Armageddon"), another we're getting a Halloween-themed piece ("Catspaw"). An episode might be a rendition of a classic war movie ("Balance of Terror") or a retelling of Hamlet ("Conscience of the King").
"I, Mudd" takes place almost entirely on a spartan subterranean set, and largely features entertaining characters conversing with each other. It's like an extended Hollywood Palace sketch. It really shouldn't work, but it does.
From Kirk's masterful exchanges with Mudd (with Kirk displaying just the right mix of exasperation, anger, and amusement) to Chekov's lively Cossack dances, to the halting…yet endearing…cadence of…the androids, to Uhura's silky mock betrayal (she really is getting a chance to shine this season!), to the grand finale filled with pantomimed absurdity–it's a stage-bound pageant of comedy. Interestingly, the avante garde Marc Daniels was tapped to direct rather than the more stagey Joe Pevney. You see his surrealistic influences particularly during the dance scenes.
No caption required.
That the story is actually pretty good is a bonus. If the show doesn't quite reach five star status for me, it's because while I enjoyed the show thoroughly, it was a bit too frivolous to feel like "real" Star Trek–essentially the same complaint I had about "Catspaw", but with an execution that makes me all but forgive the lapse.
Four stars.
Tonight's episode seems like it will be more of a serious affair. At least we'll find out what happened to Glenn Corbett after he left Route 66…
Here's the invitation! Come join us.
Also, copies of The Tricorder are still available — drop us a line for details!
Tomorrow, history will be made: the first Saturn V, largest rocket in the history of the world, will take off. If successful, Project Apollo's launch vehicle will be "man-rated", and one hurdle between humanity and the moon will have been cleared.
Of course, we'll have full coverage of the event after it happens, but this sneak preview makes a dandy segue. For today's article is on a literary type of explorer: Galaxy magazine. Unlike Apollo, Galaxy, which started in 1950, is a tried, tested, and even somewhat tired entity. Back in 1959, Galaxymoved to a larger, but bimonthly, format. This has not been an entirely successful endeavor, and in few issues are the problems more glaring than in this one. For if an editor needs to fill up 196 pages every other month (not to mention the 164 pages of one or two sister magazines), that editor's standards must sometimes slip…
Out on the edge of space lies the mineral-poor planet of Freehold. Thinly settled by humans, and then also by the alien Arulians, it lies just outside the Empire. A growing insurgency threatens to topple the existing order, and Ridenour, an imperial troubleshooter, is sent in to monitor the situation.
by Gray Morrow
Sounds pretty nifty, but it's not. The first twenty pages of this seventy-page piece are nothing but characters explaining the story to each other. Skimming the rest of the tale, I determined that it's all more of the same. Moreover, Poul doesn't even try to disguise what he's doing. He spotlights it by having his endlessly explaining protagonist marvel at what a pedant he's being–and when other characters do the same thing, he inwardly notes how much a pedant they're being.
As Kris notes:
Rule 1 of writing: If your characters are finding what you are doing contrived, so will the reader.
The whole thing is written in that archaic style Poul reverts to when given the chance, though there's no reason to do so in this book. He also can't resist being a bit sexist, even in a story that takes place thousands of years from now. Dig this gem:
"But in the parks, roses and Jasmine were abloom; and elsewhere the taverns brawled with merriment. The male citizens were happily acquiring the money that the Imperialists brought with them; the females were still more happily helping spend it."
Because in the future, women don't work; they are parasites on the real producers–the men.
Feh. One star.
That already gets us nearly halfway through the book. Things do not immediately improve…
The South Waterford Rumple Club, by Richard Wilson
by Jack Gaughan
Aliens drop bags of counterfeit money on a small American town. Economic collapse ensues, facilitating an extraterrestrial takeover.
I was about to write that Wilson was an unknown name to me, but looking through the archives, I see he's made several appearances in science fiction magazines over the past two years. He's just eminently forgettable. This story does not change the trend. For one, he spends a couple of pages giving a history lesson as to why an influx of fake currency is such a deadly weapon–akin to anthrax and mustard gas. And then we get a tedious demonstration of such an attack, followed by a couple of pages of (not well thought out) aftermath.
This is the sort of inferior stuff that filled the lesser mags of the '50s. It doesn't belong here.
Two stars.
Thank goodness for Silverbob. From here on, out, the issue is quite good. But you have to make it to page 96! (or simply skip the dross)
King of the Golden World, by Robert Silverberg
Elena, a human, has married Haugan, chief of a tribe of aliens that lives on an island dominated by twin volcanic mounts. Theirs is a genuine love, despite their divergent evolutions, but full understanding still eludes the Earth woman. Though the mountain on which the village is sited is clearly about to erupt, Haugan seems in no hurry to evacuate his people. It is only on the eve of disaster that Elena learns the true, alien nature of Haugan's people. Will she embrace it or be repelled?
This is really quite a sensitive story, timeless and nuanced. I suspect it was influenced by Silverberg's recent nonfiction histories of the original American inhabitants (collectively referred to as "Indians").
Four stars.
For Your Information: Astronautics International, by Willy Ley
Ten years ago, it was enough to keep up with the Soviets and the Americans if you wanted to know what was up in space. These days, Earth's orbit has become a truly international province, and this month's article focuses on the efforts of the non-superpowers, of which there are many.
As a space buff, articles on satellites always score extra marks with me, so I hope our tastes are aligned. Four stars.
Black Corridor, by Fritz Leiber
A man awakens, naked, without memories, inside a featureless corridor. Ahead of him lie two doors: one is labeled "Water", the other "Air". Behind him a wall moves toward him implacably. Choose…or die.
But beyond the first pair of doors is another, and another. Is this a test? Will the test end? And what is its purpose?
Less a science fiction story and more a metaphor for life itself, this piece's worth depends solely on the execution. Thankfully, Leiber is up to the task.
Four stars.
The Red Euphoric Bands, by Philip Latham
A comet is heading straight for an Earth on the brink of atomic war. Is it our doom…or our salvation?
On the one hand, the storytelling and the science are quite excellent. On the other, the conclusion is silly. Moreover, there is a fundamental fault in this otherwise accurate piece: a comet with a two light year orbit would have a period of around six billion years–too high to serve the purposes of the story.
Thus, three stars.
Galactic Consumer Report No. 3: A Survey of the Membership, by John Brunner
The first galactic survey, conducted by Good Buy magazine, turned out to be something of a fiasco–too many beings responded, and they were just too variegated to provide anything like a profile of "an average consumer". Yet, you couldn't call the exercise less than successful…
This series tends to be silly and throw-away, but this installment I liked a lot. Why? Because it's almost like a Theodore Thomas article from his F&SF column–a couple dozen story seeds all in one piece. So many stories feature aliens that are little more than humans in costume. This one presents some real aliens. It also made me laugh a few times.
On the former Kzin world of Down, orbiting a feeble red dwarf, humans have established an agricultural colony. In addition to its colorful history, Down offers another attraction: the Grogs. These are comical-looking, human-sized creatures that have two phases in life. At first, they are four-legged creatures with a dog-like intelligence. In this form, they rove the deserts of Down, hunting and mating. Eventually, the females anchor themselves to a rock, where they stay the rest of their lives.
And yet, these creatures have enormous brains, suggesting a great intelligence. Why did they evolve them, and what can they do with them? Garvey, an entrepreneur whose line is making prosthetics for "Handicapped" species, ones without manipulative organs of their own (e.g. dolphins, the enormous Bandersnatchi of planet Jinx), smells an opportunity.
Handicap, like last year's A Relic of Empire, expands what is becoming a sweeping common universe, tying in the Kzinti of The Warriors, the Thrintun of World of Ptavvs, and the hyperdrive era of Beowulf Shaeffer. What I really like about Niven is that he isn't in a hurry to tell his story. There are asides and subplots, weaving a meandering course through entertaining vignettes, before tying everything together at the end. Niven's universe feels lived in, and all of its facets are interesting. That there's a nifty story at the heart of Handicap is a bonus…though my eyebrows were raised a bit by this exchange:
Garvey: "For as long as we expand to other stars we're going to meet more and more handless, toolless, helpless civilizations. Sometimes we won't even recognize them. What are we going to do about them?"
Jilson (a guide): "Build Dolphin's Hands for them."
Garvey: "Well, yes, but we can't just give them away. Once one species starts depending on another, they become parasites."
This feels a bit like an indictment of welfare, foreign aid…or assistance to the handicapped. I would not jump to concluding that Garvey's views necessarily represent Niven's views, but I also would not be surprised, as he is a hereditary millionaire, and the plutocracy often thinks ill of public demands on their wealth. I will simply note that I think Garvey is being short-sighted. Isn't it worth the investment of a little charity to create an entirely new potential market of both imports and exports? If you give away limbs to the crippled, schools to the poor, food to the starving, will they really just sit on their duffs? Or will they simply now be unencumbered members of society, ready to participate fully? I submit that equalization of opportunity through government assistance and charity actually serves capitalism rather than subverts it.
Well, that's a tiny quibble, and again, just because Garvey thinks this way doesn't mean the author does. If anything, I'm glad he gave me something to think about–along with a good story!
A day in the life of the postal clerk of the future. A particularly bad, seemingly endless day. The kind that tries a person's soul…or tests one's abilities.
Harrison is reliably good. He does not disappoint here. Four stars.
To the Black Beyond
Having trudged through a barren literary landscape for half the span of a magazine, it was comforting to have solid ground to trod for the latter half. But now that the Galaxy is done, I am once again adrift. Who knows what lies in store within the covers of the next magazine or paperback that will cross my desk? Like the expanses of space, it's all an unknown adventure.
Luckily, there are still enough treasures waiting to be found to make the journey worth it!
For the first several episodes, this second season of Star Trek was solidly impressive. We got to attend a Vulcan wedding. We saw a mythological deity from human antiquity in a sci-fi setting. We saw a transistorized deity faced and defeated. Then a dark alternate universe, followed by a giant cornucopia of doom! I regret that I must mention the episode with the red colored rock lizard worshippers, since that was undoubtedly the low point of this season. Sadly, this week’s episode, titled “Catspaw” comes very close to hitting the low that “The Apple” achieved.
Dear readers, in my opinion, futuristic sci-fi shows should avoid doing holiday themed episodes. I have no desire to watch sci-fi episodes about Christmas or Thanksgiving. Nor Easter, the 4th of July, Passover, Saint Patrick’s Day, or Columbus Day. So, watching what clearly stood out as "made for Halloween" was disappointing. Especially since I do not feel that the episode was served by the inclusion of said theme.
We started this seventh episode of the second season on the bridge of the Enterprise as our heroes awaited a report from the landing party composed of Scotty, Sulu, and a Crewman Jackson. A message came in from Jackson, with no word about the others. As Jackson beamed up to the ship, he arrived on the transport circle dead on arrival. Then from the non-moving mouth of the dead man came a ghostly warning to leave the planets and that the Enterprise was cursed.
"There is a curse on you! Also, you've left the oven on"!
Determined to find out the fates of Scotty and Sulu, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy beam down to the planet to find their people. Arriving on the surface they find that it was a dark and foggy night. What comes next, I was not expecting: As the trio begin their search, they are confronted by three ugly witch apparitions, and wouldn’t you know it they have a poem to share. “Winds shall rise, and fog descend, so leave here all, or meet your end.” Poetry so bad that it even garners a negative review from Spock.
"Hail Captain Kirk, Thane of Cawdor!"
If that isn’t a blatant enough holiday reference, Kirk and the others soon find themselves at a dark and eerie castle. Upon entering they are startled by a black cat which leads Kirk to make the first explicit Halloween reference of the night about trick or treat. They follow the cat hoping to see where it would lead them only to be knocked unconscious as the floor collapsed below their feet.
"There's my litter box!"
They awaken to find themselves chained to the walls of a dungeon next to a skeleton that looks exactly like what it is: a Halloween decoration, or maybe a model skeleton from my kid’s science classroom. As the doors to their cell open, we get our first looks at Scotty and Sulu as they enter the dungeon. Both are under some sort of magic spell and can’t speak but make it clear that they will take Kirk and the others to the people in charge.
I hope they weren't paid by the line for this one…
They meet two aliens that have taken the forms of a wand-sporting wizard named Korob, and the beautiful witch, Sylvia. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy find themselves at the mercy of powers that could endanger the Enterprise in orbit, conjure items out of thin air, and mind control their crewmembers.
Korob and Sylvia–a tale of two coiffures
It is here that the spooky themes began to subside as the magicians reveal themselves as truly alien, with little understanding of humans or even having physical bodies. They need humans and our minds to allow them more of the new experiences that they had created. An interesting premise, but since this is Halloween, it is drowned in hocus pocus.
In the end, Kirk is able to learn about and destroy the magic wand…er…transmuter, the item that allowed their powers to work. The defeated aliens returned to their original forms and promptly die. The conclusion of the episode comes fast with virtually no transition, save for a brief explanation from Kirk to his newly liberated crew.
"The missing pages of the script are right there."
Outside of the unnecessary holiday theme, this episode managed to stay true to the elements of what makes Star Trek good. The characters' behaviors were consistent with what we have come to expect. Kirk was smart and brave. Spock was insightful, and others, so long as they were not mind controlled, behaved as they should. Also the aliens had actual, explained reasons for their actions. All this combined made this episode passable and not the absolute debacle that “The Apple” was.
3 stars.
A fool thinks himself to be wise
by Janice L. Newman
It wasn’t a surprise to learn that the same author who wrote "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", one of the worst episodes of the first season, also wrote "Catspaw". Robert Bloch is famous for his horror writing, particularly the movie Psycho. But his horror fantasy scripts simply do not translate well to the grounded science fiction of Star Trek.
"Catspaw" was a frustrating experience. Not just because it didn’t feel at all like a Star Trek episode (and naysayers in the fanzines will no doubt comment, as they did with "Miri" in the first season, that they happened to catch this episode and weren’t impressed), but also because it had the potential to be an interesting episode but simply couldn’t make it work.
Firstly, the idea that the ‘collective unconscious fears’ of our species would be reflected in a gothic castle, Shakespearian witches, and black cats, is simply ridiculous. If there is some kind of collective unconscious for humanity, the reflection of it must necessarily be both much more chaotic and universal to the human experience. This flaw could have been overcome either by saying that the aliens drew their ideas of us from our popular culture, or perhaps that they drew on one particular crewmember’s unconscious fears. Alternatively, rather than using the traditional gothic symbolism, the show could have tried something more innovative, imagining what might frighten any human anywhere throughout all of history.
Another flaw was the pacing. The scene of Sulu unlocking everyone’s chains took far too long, for example, while the final scene felt rushed. The scenes on the bridge were dull, especially with the wooden DeSalle in charge.
"I am acting!"
A particularly annoying problem with the episode was that it set up situations to be resolved and then didn’t follow through. The most egregious example of this occurs when the bridge crew finally manage to ‘dent’ the forcefield around them—only to have the forcefield lifted by one of the aliens before they can escape it on their own. While I would have been mildly irritated at the similarity to "Who Mourns for Adonais?" if the crew had cleverly managed to escape, I was far more irritated that the crew was set up to escape and then not given the opportunity to do. What was the point of those scenes on the bridge, then?
The ‘horrific’ aspects to the story often came across as comedic instead. Perhaps the ugly witches might scare a young child watching the show, but the room full of adults I was watching with chuckled at their appearance and their sung proclamations. One of the saddest pieces of wasted potential was the aliens’ true appearance. They looked like little birds made of pipe cleaners, and when they came on the screen they got the loudest laugh of the evening. A scene which could have and should have been poignant or grotesque was again turned comedic by poor writing, pacing, and framing.
I’m torn as to what rating to give this episode. On one hand, it didn’t even feel like an episode of Star Trek. On the other, there were some interesting elements, and it wasn’t confusing like "The Alternative Factor" or dully exasperating like "The Apple". Plus, there was a cat. Still, when all is said and done, the wince-inducing scenes between Kirk and the Sorceress canceled out what good there could have been. I can’t give it more than one star.
Signifying Nothing
by Amber Dubin
It's ironic that this episode is called "catspaw" because the plot is about as cohesive as a heavily pawed ball of yarn; a tangle of threads that don't hold together or go anywhere.
The acting quality of the episode peaks early with the deeply convincing collapse of ensign Jackson off the transporter pad. Yet the fact that he is the only non-essential crewman sent down to this clearly hostile planet makes less than no sense. Continuing the madness, after Jackson's corpse is used to deliver a message of warning that's immediately ignored, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are subjected to another gratuitous display from disembodied witch heads spouting Shakespearian-esque poetry. You would think this theme of theater-obsessed eccentric illusion-projectors would continue, but you would be wrong, as the only further theatrical implications come in the form of the heavily made up and costumed Korob, whose appearance is given no explanation.
Though you must admit: the camera loves him!
In further defiance of explanation, the crew wakes up chained to the walls of a dungeon after the floor of the castle they enter haphazardly collapses beneath them. Next ensues an absolutely mystifying scene where a zombified Sulu painstakingly unlocks their restraints cuff by cuff. This gesture is immediately made unnecessary when they are teleported into a throne room with Korob, one of their captors. As we've seen in "Squire of Gothos" or "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Korob reveals himself to be overpowered alien attempting to understand the nature of man. He doesn't get too far in his speech, however, before he is upstaged by the real star of the play, the necklace-wearing black cat that transforms into Sylvia, a beautiful woman.
I was hoping Sylvia's introduction would lead to a McCoy-centered episode, as Bones seems to be unable to take his eyes off her.. necklace.. from the moment she enters. That theory is immediately banished as they are all teleported back to the dungeon and McCoy re-enters as a zombie (a role to which he is well-suited). The task of seducing the femme-fatale then predictably falls on Kirk, who delivers his clunkiest and least believable performance in the series so far as he outright fails in his attempt to make her feel too pretty to harm them any longer.
Despite this entirely nonsensical plot, somehow the biggest disappointment of the episode is yet to come as the aliens descend into madness. Korob is killed by a giant door, which is as easily avoidable as it is imaginary, making it therefore harmless to a being capable of casting such illusions. Even more absurdly, these magical beings, who are said to be powerful conjurors with no abilities of sensory perception, are suddenly revealed to resemble tiny, delicate bundles of exposed nerves.
Jim Henson presents: rejected muppets!
The episode abruptly ends, nothing is resolved, no one understands anything better and I'm baffled by the fact that a simple framing device of a crewman explaining Halloween to Spock at the beginning of the episode could have cleared up where these aliens got material for all the imagery in the episode. Instead, we spent more time watching Sulu unlock imaginary restraints than we do deciphering the nature or motivations of crusty blue pipe-cleaner puppet-gods.
Ridiculous. Two stars.
by Gideon Marcus
The Play's the Thing
I must confess–I did not hate this episode. Not because it was good; heavens no! It wasn't even Star Trek. Just our favorite characters having a Halloween lark. In fact, in my mind, I've completely disregarded it as a Star Trek episode. Just as Spock and Uhura sometimes jam together in the lounge (why haven't we seen that this season?), and just as Kirk insists that real turkey be served on Thanksgiving, I've concluded that it is an Enterprise tradition that Halloween is celebrated with a big todo.
I can see Sylvia actually being Lt. McGivers' replacement, and with a minor in theatrics. Once aboard the Enterprise, she began penning her magnum opus: a play involving all of the senior officers of the ship. Suddenly, all the nonsensical bits make sense. The beaming down of Scotty and Sulu as a landing party, the spooky settings and effects, the endless kissing scenes ("Oh, but Captain, these are vital to the plot! Really, it won't breach protocol at all…")
"Did I hear a door slam? Darn. We'll have to do the whole take over!"
Taken as such, suddenly the episode is palatable. It does move pretty well. Theo Marcuse is always a delight (and a genuine war hero, and he has a great last name; he's probably my cousin). The score was nifty, particularly in the fight scene. Less so in the five minute bit when Sulu unlocked Kirk's fetters.
And there was abundant display of a cat. That, alone, is worth a star.
So, again, "Catspaw" isn't a good episode. But I would watch it in reruns three times before I suffered through "The Apple" again…
Two stars.
Something Wicked this way Comes
by Jessica Dickinson Goodman
I rather enjoyed this episode. As Amber said, it wasn't good. But it was fun. Maybe it's because I enjoy camp. I liked Theo Marcuse's silks and jewels and perfectly shaved eyebrows. I liked the kitschy sets – perhaps borrowed from a recent vampire flick? – and as other writers have noted, the cat was a special treat.
I was less impressed by how many of the so-called ‘collective unconscious fears' involved woman-hating. Crones and seductresses, liars and cheats, the non-crewwomen in this episode were like something from Jesse Helms' fever dreams, no collective I'm a part of.
Janice's proposition that the episode would have been better if it had featured truly universal fears sparks my imagination far more than anything in the episode itself. What truly scares everyone? In a world with apocalypse-worshiping churchgoers, can we say everyone is afraid of death? I would say that many, many of us are afraid of a nuclear attack from our friends across the Bering Strait, but people living outside of the blast zones could be reasonably excused from the universality of that fear.
Stepping away from the philosophical mindtwister Janice gives us and back to this rather silly episode, I am looking forward to seeing this one in reruns. There's just something so fun about our heroes getting tied up – several times – like maidens in a gothic novel.
I think the Captain is starting to enjoy it…
Watching Captain Kirk once again try to kiss his way out of trouble was made all the more fun when his captor/target caught him at his game and refused to play anymore. Despite Sylvia's embodiment of a mushy handful of cruel gender stereotypes, I found myself enjoying her time on screen more than almost anyone aside from the core cast. Cheers to Antoinette Bower for taking a two-dimensional role and turning it into something fun and memorable.
There were many, many, many ways this episode could have been improved. I would be disappointed if next week's episode shared in the same nasty stereotypes of women. I fear it will, as it centers on one of my least favorite characters in this series, Mr. Mudd.
Perhaps Sylvia will make a guest appearance and turn him into a toad before he hurts more women.
Three stars.
I don't know how likely it is that Mudd will get his comeuppance, but we can certainly hope!
The episode airs tomorrow night. Here's the invitation! Come join us.
Also, copies of The Tricorder are still available — drop us a line for details!
This week's foreign news was dominated by affairs in the Middle East. When the papers weren't talking about the United Nations futilely trying to hammer out a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt (whose conflict has become a continuous low burn rather than a short conflagration), they were gushing over the crowing of Persia's "King of Kings".
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the uncrowned king of Iran for the last 26 years, chose his 48th birthday to crown himself Light of the Aryans, emperor of "the world's oldest monarchy." Also crowned was his wife, Farah, who became the first empress of Persia since the 7th century A.D.
Taking place in the dazzling Hall of Mirros in Gole-stan Palace, the event was possibly the most expensive coronation in history, with newspaper accounts breathlessly describing the type and number of jewels employed in the various accoutrements of state and decorations. The affair concluded with 101-gun salutes, kicking off a week of celebrations that are just wrapping up today.
According to the Shah, the reason for the long delay between ascension to rule and formalization of said rule was that he did not want to take the grand title until Iran had become a modern, prosperous state.
My only aim is to further the prosperity and glory of my nation, and make Iran the most progressive country in the world, resurrecting its ancient glory and grandeur. For this I will not hesitate to sacrifice my life.
While the newspapers and newsreels seem dazzled by the Shah's extravaganza, many of Iran's 25 million people were less impressed. One young woman, student at the Tehran University, would have fit right in at this spring's protests of the Shah's visit to West Germany:
Why should he spend all this money on his coronation? There are so many poor people. He should give them the money.
It should also be noted that while the Shah did take the throne of Iran in 1941, his reign was not uninterrupted. Unmentioned in all the newspaper accounts I could find of the coronation was the two-year tenure of Mohammed Mosaddeq, the democratically elected but leftist prime minister of Iran from 1951-1953. During the Mosaddeq administration, the Shah fled the country, only returning when a coup removed Mossadeq from power—an event which, if not instigated with assistance from the United States and the United Kingdom, was certainly extremely convenient for both governments.
Magazine of Magazines
It has been a couple of years since Analog Science Fiction won the Hugo Award for Best Magazine, but there's no question that it still reigns supreme both in subscribers and general esteem. However, some have complained that editor John Campbell does not do enough to mix up the contents of his publication, relying on the same bunch of authors every month, resulting in a somewhat tired affair.
This month, there are no old hands in the table of contents, but like the throne of Iran, has anything really changed?
What a strange opening novella this is: a long lost colony world is peopled by numerous bands of Scots, operating at an 18th Century technology level…but with an American Indian organization. The latter seems eclectic, using terms like sachem, cacique, as well as counting coup, but no explanation as to why these marooned Celts adopted customs from the western hemisphere are forthcoming.
Anyway, this is the tale of John of the Hawks, a boy on the verge of manhood, who achieves maturity by counting coup on three cattle-rustling men of Clan Thompson. His ascension is delayed by the arrival of men from another world. They represent themselves as scouts, but what they really want is the abundant platinum deposits on planet Caledonia.
The outworlders don't actually play much part in this story. Mostly, we get scenes of John of the Hawks riding horses, battling rival clansmen, facing off against and falling in love with Alice of the Thompsons–a lass who is Every Bit as Good as a Man. It all reads like a dime Western.
And if "Guy McCord" isn't Mack Reynolds, I'll eat my hat. From the interspersed history lessons to the trademark invented slang, it's got his fingerprints all over it.
A low three stars.
Prostho Plus, by Piers Anthony
by Kelly Freas
The writer of the execrable Chthon has thankfully returned to short stories. This is a readable, if not particularly remarkable, tale of a dentist who is tasked with filling the molars of an alien.
A story like this would usually be played for laughs, but Prostho is done straight, with an underlying tinge of horror.
Three stars.
The Case of the Perjured Planet, by Martin Loran
by Kelly Freas
The interstellar librarian, name of Quist, is back for his second story. Using the purveying of books as a cover, the librarian corps is really a division of agents whose job is to monitor the various governments of the galactic confederation.
This time around, Quist is investigating a planet with a secret: it's not that there's evidence that the drab, earthquake-riven world of Napoleon 6 harbors something hidden, but rather the lack thereof. Quist, knee-deep in 20th Century style detective novels, decides to take a page from Sam Spade's book, and opens up a private detective agency on the planet in the hopes that the clues will come to him.
Like last time, it's not a tale that will stick with you, but there's a maturity to the story's telling that suggests Loran is 1) quite a good writer who just needs a better subject/venue or 2) "Loran" is as real a name as "Guy McCord", and a quite good writer is slumming in Campbell's mag.
Three stars.
Applied Science Fiction, by Will F. Jenkins
And now for the highlight of the issue. Will Jenkins, better known to the science fiction community as Murray Leinster, is not only a renowned writer–he also is an inventor. Here is the tale of how he conceived the incredibly useful technology of front projection, allowing actors to appear in ready-made projected scenery in a far more convincing and versatile manner than rear projection.
I really enjoyed this piece, and bravo Mr. Jenkins. Five stars.
The Cure-All Merchant, by Jack Wodhams
by Kelly Freas
A doctor manages a successful practice by dealing in placebos, much to the horror of the straight man inspector assigned to investigate his activities. This piece goes on endlessly, asserting that drugs are useless, and the human mind is all.
Ducks like a quack. One star.
Mission: Red Plague, by Joe Poyer
by Kelly Freas
This last piece is a sort of sequel to Operation: Red Clash, again involving the mythical X-17 hypersonic reconaissance plane. This time, the spy jet observes the deployment of a biological plague on the Sino-Soviet front. The problem is the X-17 cockpit isn't completely airtight…
Poyer writes competent Caidenesque technophiliac stuff, but he has trouble hanging an interesting story on it.
Another low three stars.
Spot the difference?
On the surface, it appears Analog has gotten out of its rut, exploring the output of several new authors. But it doesn't take much inspection to see that Campbell's mag offers more of the same, between the pseudo-Reynolds piece, the workmanlike Loran, Anthony and Poyer, and the truly bad (but Campbell-pleasing) Wodhams. Only the Jenkins/Leinster is truly noteworthy, pulling the issue up to a three star rating.
That puts it below Fantasy & Science Fiction (3.25) and New Worlds (3.2) and above IF (2.8) and Fantastic (2.7) In other words, middlin', which one would expect of a mag doing the same ol', same ol'.
For those keeping up with statistics, the amount of superlative stuff this month could fill a Galaxy-sized mag; not terrific given that five magazines came out with a November 1967 cover date. Women produced a surprising 12.5% of all new short fiction, an achievement rendered less impressive for those stories all appearing in one magazine–F&SF, which was the best magazine of the month.
So here's hoping Analog goes for real change next month rather than the veneer of change. Maybe it'll be a failed experiment…or maybe Campbell will get to oversee a new Golden Age. Be bold, John!
![[December 20, 1967] Smut! (January 1968 <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/671220cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
</small![[December 8, 1967] You're a Big Girl Now (<i>Star Trek</i>: "Friday's Child")](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/671208title.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[November 30, 1967] One door closes… (December 1967 <i>Analog</i> and Australia joins the Space Race!)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/671130cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[November 24, 1967] Guess who's coming to dinner? (<i>Star Trek</i>: "Journey to Babel")](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/671124title.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[November 22, 1967] Being #3… (December 1967 <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/671122cover.jpg?resize=653%2C372)
![[November 18, 1967] Escape Velocity (November Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/671120covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[November 10, 1967] Mudd in the computer (<i>Star Trek</i>: "I, Mudd")](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/671110title.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[November 8, 1967] Four to go (December 1967 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/671108cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[November 2, 1967] Trouble and Toil (<i>Star Trek</i>: Catspaw)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/671102title.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[October 31, 1967] Same ol' (November 1967 <i>Analog</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/671031cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
